Elevator Pitch
Dr Miranda Grey is a psychiatrist in a large high security psychiatric hospital, where her husband is the chief of the department. While driving home on a dark rainy night she is directed by the police to take an alternative route, and after crossing a wooden bridge swerves intoa ditch to avoid a young woman standing in the road. She approaches the woman and the next thing she knows she wakes up as a patient in her own hospital and is told that she has killed her husband with an axe. She is advised by another patient that she can say what she likes, it will just be considered to be part of her madness, but somehow she has to escape and prove her innocence – and she has help from beyond the grave.
Content
Many spooky events take place, the doctor meets with patients before her incarceration; after her imprisonment she is treated badly by the staff and is not believed by her former colleagues. She is helped by at least one ghost and out in the prison in the dark she is chased by the guards. There are scenes in flashback of the murder taking place and there is other violence. There is no sex, and the nudity is restricted to a very weird scene of the inmates in a sort of collective shower.
A View | I could not quite see Halle Berry as a psychiatrist, but she did well, I thought, as the escapee in prison clothing – a sort of Linda Hamilton part. The denouement, when it comes, is just a bit weak and much used in B movies, but there is a story and it holds together so, despite the panning by nearly all the critics, it is not that bad, so not a total waste of time if you can watch it for nothing. | ||
Duration | 1h 38m | Rating (UK) | 15 |
Source of story | An original screenplay | ||
Director | Mathieu Kassovitz | ||
Writers/Script | Sebastian Gutierrez | ||
Starring | Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr, Charles S. Dutton, John Carroll Lynch, Bernard Hill, Penélope Cruz | ||
Additional Info | Despite the panning the film seems to have made money, considered by some to have made $140 million against a $40 million budget. |
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